XFX Radeon HD 5970
PrintDirectX 11 CrossFire on a stick
The recipe: Take two of the fastest GPUs on the planet capable of running DirectX 11, specially chosen for their low voltage leakage. Toss in two gigabytes of high-speed GDDR5 memory. Mix all ingredients into a card with high-end Japanese solid capacitors and a souped-up thermal dissipation system. The result: the XFX Radeon HD 5970—a GPU so yummy, you may even go back for seconds.
While the product name doesn’t hint at the card’s dual-GPU nature, there’s no mistaking the presence of two graphics chips when you check out the back of the board. Then there’s the sheer size of it: At more than 12 inches, you’ll need a high-end PC case that’s deep enough to handle this monster. You’ll need a beefy power supply, too, since the HD 5970 burns 294W at full throttle—and that’s if you don’t overclock it. The good news is the card consumes just 42W at idle, less than double the idle power of a single HD 5870, thanks to an enhanced deep-sleep mode for the slave GPU.
The XFX Radeon HD 5970: two 5870 GPUs, two gigabytes of GDDR5, a card that's more than a foot long.
AMD built in a number of enhancements over its previous dual-GPU effort, the 4870 X2. The card now sports a full-length vapor chamber mounted on the back of the board, which enables the card to support up to 400W of heat dissipation—enough headroom for some serious overclocking. A simplistic overvolting tool is available on AMD’s website, allowing you to tweak the voltage setting a little higher in order to push clock speeds—albeit at the expense of additional power consumption.
The HD 5970 does make a few compromises in order to shoehorn 4 billion transistors worth of GPUs onto one card. Core and memory clocks are lower than on the single-GPU Radeon HD 5870, at 725MHz and 1,000MHz, respectively (versus the HD 5870’s 850MHz and 1,200MHz). AMD has built in lots of overhead, so if you have good case cooling and a suitable PSU, you can push the clock speed much higher if you want. One other compromise is the use of a mini-DisplayPort connector. This kept all three display connectors on one expansion slot cover, so that a full-height exhaust could be added to the second slot cover.
OK, so the card is physically large and burns nearly 300W at full throttle. But does it perform? Yes, Virginia, this card does indeed deliver the goods. It’s the fastest single graphics card we’ve ever tested. At $600, this card had better be fast. XFX’s limited lifetime warranty, complete with the ability to transfer said warranty when you resell the card, eases that financial pain a bit.
What you get for your six C-bills is an incredibly speedy graphics card that delivers tremendous gaming performance and doesn’t eat kilowatts when idle. So if what you want is the fastest graphics card you can buy, then the XFX Radeon HD 5970 is the card for you. Just make sure your case can handle it.
XFX Radeon HD 5970
Full House
Incredible gaming performance; very low idle power usage; XFX's excellent warranty.
Busted Flush
So big you need a huge PC case to hold it; pricey; eats power at full bore.
9
Benchmarks
| XFX Radeon HD 5970 | GeForce GTX 295 | XFX 5870 | EVGA 285 GTX SSC | Radeon HD 4870 X2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3DMark Vantage Performance | 21,202 | 19,342 | 17,089 | 13,941 | 14,458 |
| 3DMark Vantage Extreme | 12,537 | 9,241 | 8,312 | 6,276 | 6,574 |
| HAWX (fps) | 102 | 93 | 68 | 62 | 78 |
| Far Cry / Action (fps) | 76 | 62 | 62 | 47 | 67 |
| Far Cry 2 / Ranch Long (fps) | 113 | 73 | 74 | 56 | 77 |
| Battle Forge / DX10 (fps) | 60 | 33 | 47 | 46 | 36 |
| Crysis / DX10 (fps) | 44 | 29 | 32 | 22 | 33 |
| Resident Evil 5 (fps) | 131 | 115 | 100 | 87 | 126 |
| X3: Terran Conflict (fps) | 106 | 100 | 101 | 93 | 101 |
| STALKER: Clear Skies (fps) | 52 | 40 | 36 | 27 | 38 |
Our test bed consists of an X58 chipset motherboard, an Intel 3.3GHz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition, 6GB of DDR3, and Windows 7 Ultimate in 64-bit. All games were run at 1920x1200 with 4x AA.
More like this
FattSlice
May 07, 2010 at 8:00pm
I would like to know where the hell MaximumPC or any other place is getting this 600$ figure, I have not found a single reputable website or retailer which sells one for under 700$, that is if you can find it in stock.
robbyyung
April 19, 2010 at 1:49pm
Someone please help me and tell me what the 5970 is in this video and why it is so important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dWziA_u5OU
daveyd
February 19, 2010 at 9:48am
...not worth the cost considering those benchmarks.
For less than six Benjamins, I bought three GTX Core 216's and got 27,617 on 3Dmark Vantage using an i7 965 EE CPU, as opposed to21,202 with a Core i7 975 Extreme Edition.
Stry8993
February 12, 2010 at 12:57pm
Unfortunetly our great and awesome 5000 series let slip some faulty GPU's through the Fab, and well, I got one. Black Screens of Death, Vertical Stripping, Pink Speckles... great when it works, the most frustrating load of crock when it doesn't. Make sure you check the return policy folks! They're not all broken, but the ones that are are annoying as all hell!
BloOdymAN666
February 11, 2010 at 3:55pm
Props to the art department becuase lately all of the product setups and shots are simply beautiful. I really admire the shots!
Also, this card is shiny!
gtubbesing
February 11, 2010 at 3:55pm
Yeah, PriceGrabber says it's $199, but if you look closely, you'll see that's for the HD 4890, not the 5970 featured in the article. I checked at Newegg and they list the HD 5970 Black Edition at $729.99... so is this review for the Black Edition or the regular version of the card...
Michael DiMatteo
March 29, 2010 at 10:23am
I put "Priceswapper" on my "unreliable source" list when they shipped OEM ram instead of the OCZ Platinum sticks that THEY advertised and I ordered. Then they refused to admit their mistake and insisted that the OEM ram was the same as OCZ platinum......right. My advice to all, flush them, they totally suck.
Spacegy4
February 11, 2010 at 2:02pm
I just can't belief the lack of mentioning eyefinity in this review. If the reviewer actually cared to cover all of the features he would find out that in order to run eyefinity on DVI monitors: you either need at least one displayport monitor or an expensive $80-100 active mini DP to DVI adapter. I personally think that is an extremely important aspect that might discourage people from purchasing the card.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1461673
SEALBoy
February 13, 2010 at 6:31pm
44 fps is pretty smooth. It's not going to affect playability, at any rate.
snapple00
February 14, 2010 at 12:20am
It would for me.
A choppy experience breaks it for me. I just can't play a game with less than an average of 60 fps.
envy
February 14, 2010 at 3:41pm
Then your pretty picky. 5970 is the top GPU in the world and thats the best you're going to get unless you crossfire it.
emzfrendcrisis
February 11, 2010 at 12:17pm
I think the price grabber is broken. I says that it is $199. If that is true then i am going to get a loan to get one. Can you say tax return?
The closer to the light the greater your shadow becomes.
big_montana
February 11, 2010 at 12:10pm
Try Newegg as there are six different manufacturers currently selling this card, including XFX
SpazzAttack
February 11, 2010 at 11:12am
That video cards sounds like a beast...now if only we could find one available to purchase.
nekollx
February 11, 2010 at 10:49am
it's so biiiiiiig!!!!!!
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